Yolk

//joʊk// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The yellow, spherical part of an egg that is surrounded by the white albumen, and serves as nutriment for the growing young. countable, uncountable

    "To make meringue, you have to separate the white from the yolk."

  2. 2
    nutritive material of an ovum stored for the nutrition of an embryo (especially the yellow mass of a bird or reptile egg) wordnet
  3. 3
    The grease in a sheep's fleece; lanolin. countable, uncountable

    "Wool-growers appear to entertain different opinions in regard to the effect which yolk has on the value of the fleece. Some seem to suppose that the aggregate amount which they receive for their wool is increased from the greater weight which it possesses by being charged with this substance[…]"

  4. 4
    the yellow spherical part of an egg that is surrounded by the albumen wordnet
Verb
  1. 1
    To produce yolk.

    "This is surprising in that these females were yolking up their clutch of eggs"

Synonyms

All synonyms
egg yolkvitellusalbumencaviareggegg white

Antonyms

All antonyms
white

Example

More examples

"Place them on the baking sheet, then glaze them with egg yolk."

Etymology

From Middle English yolke, yelke, ȝolke, ȝelke, from Old English ġeolca, ġeoloca, ġioleca (“the yellow part, yolk”), from ġeolu (“yellow”).

Related phrases

egg yolkyolk plugyolk sacbaby chickencenter eggegg centeregg centreegg middleegg partegg yellowin egginside egg

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.